


Blood impure yet Powerful

by choppedmint (forevermint)



Series: The Road Not Taken [6]
Category: The Morganville Vampires - Rachel Caine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21642145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forevermint/pseuds/choppedmint
Summary: ORIGIN "Mad: Blood impure yet Powerful": I had no clue where this one was going to go. I actually thought originally this would be a story where the Goldmans ran into Myrnin. But instead it worked its way into a dream. And then Amelie was confirmed to have a bit of long distance reach into the Goldmans’ lives. This was about the first home Theo and co. got, I would say? They weren’t that far away at the time, but they assumed it was far enough to be out of the way. When this dream happened, they packed up and moved again.
Relationships: Theo Goldman & Amelie (Morganville Vampires), Theo Goldman/Patience Goldman
Series: The Road Not Taken [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558276





	Blood impure yet Powerful

The Goldmans were of no relation to Bishop, at least on the vampire side. There had been a day and age when Bishop had many lackeys to do what he deemed dirty work. This apparently had included the little experiment which had been the Goldman family.

No kinship ever laid between them and any vampires close to Bishop. They were disappointments to the vampires he played host to, since they refused – even so far as to outright reject – the lifestyle. But what befuddled them, it seemed, wasn’t that Theo and his family were against killing and murder but that, even though the one who had created them was almost as powerful as Bishop, the family was _weak_. Illogical as this was, because there should have been something to them. Theo was almost unable to hypnotize, Marcellus and Jochen almost hadn’t made the transition at all, and the children never seemed to age within their head even as years passed around them.

Maybe that was why Bishop got entertainment from them.

But when they escaped, greatly due to Amelie’s interference, there were other problems to face. Bishop might have been behind them – and the one who changed them left behind – but those weren’t the only vampires in the world.

And what you leave behind can still find you …

Theo was dreaming of how his family had died again. Vampires dreams are so vivid they can not be told apart from reality. He watched them die again, was broken again, and then it was his own death he relived.

Nothing … and then spinning in a thunderstorm. Tossed around like a raindrop, bouncing off leaves and away … Only to have something chase him, the unending thought of his family and wanting them _back_ spiraling through his head. Then something caught him, pulling him back with more force then he had ever felt before and ever felt since.

 _Memories are like that,_ said the voice of the man who had killed him. Not Bishop, who had given the order. But of the man who had carried them out. _They say like cobwebs in the back of your head, until you can’t escapes them.  
_  
Theo knew what this was. He’d been here before. And he’d never been able to throw it off. Sometimes he’d never been able to even recognize it as anything more than a dream.

On the ground now. Still in the dream. Weak as a newborn kitten but _so_ hungry. Trembling with it. Hardly able to think straight. But he pressed a few words out of his mouth, for the reality which had invaded his head. “Get out of my dreams.”

Then there was the man, his hand lifting Theo’s chin until Theo was looking into his eyes. Like the first time, he couldn’t help it as he was forced by the same hunger to attack the man. But he’d just laughed and kept out of Theo’s reach. “Like old time, hum?” And then there had been an animal. Maybe a fox. Theo still remembered killing it. It had been released, live, into what had once been his house.

He’d never accept it as his house again.

“Bishop is wondering where you are,” said the man, nonchalantly as Theo ate. He hadn’t been able to work out the simple hypnosis of a fox. Instinct hadn’t even taken him that far. It hadn’t been scared enough to be completely silent in fright. He still remembered it.

It made no difference if he said something out loud or thought it. But once again he attempted to break away from the other vampire’s attempts to squirm his way deeper into the dream. He should have been powerful enough to shield his own head. He should have been able to at least have some control. But nothing … He was only just able to talk. _Get out!  
_  
“I’d prefer to watch, thank you,” said the other vampire, looking around the room. It had been about the time Theo had been aware enough of who he was – and what he was doing – to take in his surroundings. He’d almost been sick.

He’d been the last one changed.

“Such a broken family,” muttered the vampire. “Amazing how far you’ve come. Got your own house again, I see?”

Thankfully, it was almost a relief, the dream shifted. But then it was just as bad, because it was the house they had moved into. The vampire walked around the carefully packed earth garden and looked at the surrounding houses of the town. “Ah. Humans! How quaint. Bishop could have fun here. Still in France, but I supposed you couldn’t have run far if I could still reach your head.”

Theo could move outside of his memories now, but still seemed to be tethered to the whims of the vampire who’d changed him. “How is your wife, by the way?” he asked, as if this was all just conversation.

Theo gritted his teeth. Over and over, he thought about the vampire leaving … and over and over he remained.

“Cooking, perhaps?” he asked, walking directly through the wall of the house and into the kitchen. “Somehow keeping up the pretense of ‘normality’, I suppose you’d call it.”

The kitchen did prove to have Patience in it. She was next to him, in the real world, wasn’t she? Was this vampire in her dreams too? The thought of it made Theo’s teeth grind together.

The vampire circled the one room of the two-room house, seeming to find very little to entertain himself with. “Drab,” he said, yawning. “You could use some better food, for starters.” He looked over what Patience – the dream Patience – was preparing. “Looks like it never moved a day in its life. Vegetables? Really? Maybe I should shift the dream to some decent food.”

Theo probably stiffened, since the vampire looked over at him. “My, you do seem to be tense.” There was a soft chuckle.  
Suddenly, the vampire frowned, looking around as if he was trying to find something. The chuckle petered out. “Hold that thought,” he murmured. There was a brief moment of silence, with him looking around as if he was trying to listen for something. His face relaxed again, turning back to Theo, and he opened his mouth.

Then his eyes grew wide and something blossomed from his chest.

It was tipped with silver.

“Oh …” he said, seeming completely surprised before tipping backwards, the stake still embedded in his chest.

Several things in Theo’s head shattered. Like something which had been there had been removed. The image of the other vampire dissolved, leaving Theo confused. His head felt strangely empty, a void where the other vampire had been. It almost made him feel sick. And even more so, to know he was _relieved_ beyond words.

He wouldn’t learn how the person who changed him died until three hundred years later. When he and his family met Amelie again.

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGIN "Mad: Blood impure yet Powerful": I had no clue where this one was going to go. I actually thought originally this would be a story where the Goldmans ran into Myrnin. But instead it worked its way into a dream. And then Amelie was confirmed to have a bit of long distance reach into the Goldmans’ lives. This was about the first home Theo and co. got, I would say? They weren’t that far away at the time, but they assumed it was far enough to be out of the way. When this dream happened, they packed up and moved again.


End file.
